Easy Tomato Sauce

Have I posted this already? I can’t remember. Making sauce from scratch is one of the most satisfying things to do in the kitchen, and I can’t think of it without recalling teaching my cousin and his housemate how to do it for the first time (and the first time I learned how to do [...]

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Things to do with CHEESE

Spinach Lasagna 1 lb medium tofu (or 1 cup ricotta, though I’ve never tried it) ¼ c milk oregano, basil, salt 2 tbsp lemon juice several cloves garlic 2 cups spinach, chopped (or food processered) 4-6 cups spaghetti sauce cooked lasagna noodles 2 cups cheese (parmesan or mozarella or both) 1. In a blender, blend [...]

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Things to do with Potatoes

Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew. Bonus points if you name the quote. We’re Polish and Irish by descent, so home cooking in our family is pretty heavy on the potatoes. Plus potatoes are cheap and just taste damn good. And it’s finally the time of year where we get them every [...]

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The Bean Stuff

A lot of the recipes in my cookbook call for “the bean stuff.” This is something I started making in college when I was eating everything out of cans, for lack of fridge storage. It is super easy and can be used to make any number of things, some of which you will find below, [...]

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What your mom would have taught you if Kraft hadn’t stepped in

1. Olive oil is your best friend. Buy olive oil in huge quantities. When in doubt, stir-fry everything in olive oil. (Or butter. Oh, or bacon fat! I keep a jar on the kitchen counter where I dump the fat out from frying bacon, and I use this for cooking all the time. It’s delicious.) [...]

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Seasoning Basics

Basil- sweet, goes good in savory dishes with tomatoes. Bay leaves- make fantastic cookies. More commonly found, sparingly, in spaghetti sauce. Have a sharp, sort of pine taste (bay laurel trees are evergreen). Cilantro- an herb that upsets some people’s stomachs, but which is kind of sweet and sharp and great with curry and anything [...]

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The Basics to Stir Frying

Since I’ve been on about them so much… We make almost everything in a single, giant frying pan, or sometimes a wok, which is basically a deep frying pan. You can make anything if your pan is big enough, even tomato sauce, though a pot is usually more convenient for preventing splashes. The trick to [...]

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What You’re Going to Get

I am having a terrible time coming up with things to write about lately, considering I haven’t been cooking, I have barely been eating, and I haven’t even been to the farmer’s market in over a month. The most exciting food related thing that’s happened to me has been a bad fried cheese incident on [...]

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The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies You’ve Ever Tasted

Written while I was vegan. Still use vegan margarine though, because I just can’t get used to the taste of butter. Or of eggs. The only thing I use non-vegan when baking cookies is the chocolate chips. If these do not convince you that going vegan is the best idea you’ve ever had, you may [...]

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Chop Until Your Arms Fall Off

It’s that time of year again: the tomatoes and squash and eggplants are coming in like crazy, and what do we do with them? Here’s an answer from the unfinished cookbook. Initially, I didn’t think I needed to put in instructions for chopping. It’s something you have to see more than anything else, and every [...]

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